


dance to the plastic beat

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Eternal Punishment, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: There was a pattern to the nightmares he’d been having.





	dance to the plastic beat

**Author's Note:**

> or: what if maya weren't the only one experiencing ~deja vu~ ???

**1, dreams**

—

There was a pattern to the nightmares he’d been having. Eikichi noticed it the first time he awoke in cold sweat and sprawled haphazard with the blanket lying discarded on the floor next to his bed, for once not because he’d been dreaming about the long-gone bullies of his unspoken youth or the smell of rotten fish-guts or the way his father’s jaw seemed to tense the slightest bit more whenever he saw his son off to school, standing behind the counter and scrutinizing Eikichi as though there was a new weakness he’d given away, one he feared couldn’t be masked with voice or bravado or half-strung ideas about packing up and skipping town in a van with his bandmates in tow, making it big— _just you watch, Dad_ —someday, one day.

It wasn’t anything like that. If it were, he’d have known how to deal with it by now; push it away from the forefront of his mind, deflect the questions with a laugh and a change of subject: _I heard an upperclassman’s been bothering you lately, why don’t you tell me about it?_ And they always would, their misplaced concern for him and his nonexistent troubles dissipating like morning fog.

Eikichi was used to a lot of things, after all. It had surprised him when he realized this wasn’t something he was capable of ignoring. Or at least, it didn’t come as easily.

—

During the rainy walk home a week later Eikichi decided they couldn’t exactly be classified as _nightmares_ , not really. They weren’t scary in the least; at least no more terrifying than the usual things he would admit—only privately, of course—to be scared of. But the images, disjointed and curiously blurred at the edges, continued to follow his waking thoughts: through his morning routine at the train station’s bathroom and the sleepy afternoon classes and the early evenings he’d been stretching more and more in an attempt to finish up the song he’d been working on for weeks now. Not because he wasn’t looking forward to going home, not at all. It was all for the sake of Gas Chamber.

He would tell Miyabi to stop worrying so much, if only he could find the right words to assuage her. He’d been having trouble with that, lately—the right words. Even superstars-to-be had their bouts of songwriter’s block, he thought to himself then, with tentative optimism. It will go away eventually. The way dewdrops vanished or clouds scattered after rain or how shadows would lengthen and stretch, further and further from their bodies, only to fade with the setting sun. To frustrate himself over finding a solution to a temporary problem would be stupid.

He loved Miyabi, besides, and of this much he was certain. He was certain of her returned affections and the fond way she laughed at him, and certain that the reason she kept giving him those strange concerned looks when she thought he weren’t looking was because she cared—because she wanted to be there for him the same way Eikichi would, no doubt, for her. Even if there were nothing worth getting so worked up about. But he couldn’t fault that.   

The water splashed at his ankles and slid off the bright plastic of his umbrella, closed and hanging at his arm as he stepped under the train station’s concrete cover. There was no band practice today. Miyabi had insisted he needed the rest, and Eikichi had acquiesced, trusting her not to press on, and didn’t tell her about the dreams, despite the nagging wrongness of keeping secrets from her. The dreams would go away too, eventually, maybe, if he could start by not thinking of them so often.

As he faced his reflection in the bathroom mirror he turned on the sink, felt the water splash cold and brisk against his face, and tried very hard not to think about half-remembered dreams of masked cultists or alien spaceships or cheerful journalists with sunny smiles turned to the world around them—and he splashed some more water to wash the eyeliner out—or intrepid, loud-voiced foreign girls with short statures that belied their proficiency in punching things hard enough to bruise (and then some).

Her memory shone with such singular light it was almost painful. The thought occurred to him as he turned to the mirror once more, his face now frightfully bare, that for all the grief she’d been giving him for the past few days, he didn’t even know the girl’s name—for all he knew she might have been one of his countless secret admirers, trying to get to him through the ways of dream-hijacking, and all his tossing and turning and waking up with an unexplained ache in his chest was for the sake of some rowdy girl’s crush on him. Imagine that!

The rain had long stopped. Eikichi walked into the sushi restaurant and tried, if only for a while, to put those thoughts behind him. He wouldn’t want his father to ask questions, after all.

—

He wanted to know who she was. He wanted to find her, if only to walk up to her face and tell her he appreciated her feelings, truly, and he was sorry to say she just wasn’t his type—he preferred his female fans to be less prone to violence at the drop of a hat—but would she settle for an autograph instead? It’ll be worth hundreds and thousands of yen in the near future, you know. If only to say those words of rejection, he wanted to see her. If such a girl even existed. But he hoped she did.

Maybe if he met her the dreams would stop, and he’d be able to put to rest the moments of pause he’d have at times like these, when he’d recall bits and pieces of people who might not exist or things that might not have happened, friendships never formed and worlds never shattered, not knowing why his chest would feel all tight and heavy afterwards, his thoughts haunted by something he couldn’t name, not loss and certainly not longing.

What could he call it, wanting so desperately to regain something you never had in the first place?

That night, lying awake under the dark ceiling of his room, Eikichi wondered if, somewhere out there, she was feeling the same thing. He wanted to find her, and he knew he would, if he tried hard enough. There were only so many natural blondes hanging around the city, after all, and only so many that spoke Cantonese and wore a Sevens uniform. Maybe he would start tomorrow. Miyabi would understand, if he told her, or at least he hoped she would—but perhaps this was just one of those things he’d have to settle on his own. That was fine, Eikichi thought. He’d had plenty of experience in keeping things to himself, after all.

He turned on his side, buried himself under the warm comforter, and counted the seconds before sleep—before he’d see her once more.  

—

—

On that day, standing at the steps of the shrine, a summer’s worth of lost memories accumulated between them, he finally did.

**Author's Note:**

> ever since that day i got hurt by love i've been living a vampire life
> 
> written for persona week day #1


End file.
